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Google’s stock slid after report on search ad decline

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Re: Google’s stock slid after report on search ad decline

#71

Post by mark_l_watson »

When I worked as a contractor at Google it was amazing how much money they apparently spend on infrastructure, buildings, people, food, etc. However, they do sometimes bring in $16 billion a quarter.

Except for when I travel, I don't much use gmail and Google search. (When traveling, I like booking using gmail, auto calendar and travel events, notifications, etc.). Otherwise I use my own email, calendar, etc. and DuckDuckGo.

I do pay Google about $25/month directly for Google Play Music, renting movies, and extra GDrive storage.

If I were a typical customer, would a $25/month average spend per user be enough to pay their expenses and generate sufficient profit?

Edit: dividing $4 billion per month by $25 per user per month yields a required 160 million paying users per month to equal ad revenues.

Re: Google’s stock slid after report on search ad decline

#72

Post by amelius »

Jabbles wrote: post #66
amelius wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of those products you name, GMail, Youtube, Chrome, Maps and Docs are near-commodity products. These are just basic services for which open-source versions exist, and every engineering team of about 50 people could easily recreate them given today's state of technology. This also holds for Facebook. The real struggle lies not in the technology, but in the network-effect and branding.

What do you think the thousands of engineers that work on these products are doing? You realise that there's a lot more to these products than the web interface?

They work on making it scale. But that is an activity that pays for itself.

Re: Google’s stock slid after report on search ad decline

#73

Post by Retric »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #71

When I worked as a contractor at Google it was amazing how much money they apparently spend on infrastructure, buildings, people, food, etc. However, they do sometimes bring in $16 billion a quarter. Except for when I travel, I don't much use gmail and Google search. (When traveling, I like booking using gmail, auto calendar and travel events, notifications, etc.). Otherwise I use my own email, calendar, etc. and Duc…

Microsoft does not get 25$ a month from most people, they just have a billion+ customers. Google is in a similar situation and your probably vastly more profitable than their average customer.

Re: Google’s stock slid after report on search ad decline

#74

Post by mark_l_watson »

Retric wrote: post #73
mark_l_watson wrote: post #71

When I worked as a contractor at Google it was amazing how much money they apparently spend on infrastructure, buildings, people, food, etc. However, they do sometimes bring in $16 billion a quarter. Except for when I travel, I don't much use gmail and Google search. (When traveling, I like booking using gmail, auto calendar and travel events, notifications, etc.). Otherwise I use my own email, calendar, etc. and Duc…

Microsoft does not get 25$ a month from most people, they just have a billion+ customers. Google is in a similar situation and your probably vastly more profitable than their average customer.

Microsoft gets much less money from my family. My wife and I spend $99/year for Office 365 (mostly for the cloud storage, less for the office apps).

Re: Google’s stock slid after report on search ad decline

#75

Post by zetaabba »

amelius wrote: post #64
msoad wrote: post #2

As much as people like to consider Google revenu sources very diverse or dream about future of other Google bets, Google is mostly an advertisement company heavily relying on their search business. It's obvious that Facebook has a better position for growth and adding new channels for their ads business. I can see Facebook share of online advertising grow in the next couple of years.

It saddens me that so many smart people work for IT companies like Google and Facebook, while they could make a real difference doing medical or fundamental physics research.

why, would you prefer there not to be a search engine that can find (almost) anything you need in less than a second for (almost) no cost to you and then takes the money it earns from you and pours it into major projects with no promise of revenue?

Comments like these seem to suggest that Google or Facebook are the worst and one spends their time better somewhere other than IT. I really just don't see it.

Re: Google’s stock slid after report on search ad decline

#76

Post by amelius »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #71

When I worked as a contractor at Google it was amazing how much money they apparently spend on infrastructure, buildings, people, food, etc. However, they do sometimes bring in $16 billion a quarter. Except for when I travel, I don't much use gmail and Google search. (When traveling, I like booking using gmail, auto calendar and travel events, notifications, etc.). Otherwise I use my own email, calendar, etc. and Duc…

But how much does each user earn them now (with ads only)?

If they make $16 billion a quarter, then assuming they have about 1 billion users, that's about $5 per month per user.

I just wish I could pay that to get rid of all the ads, and the creepy user-tracking.

Re: Google’s stock slid after report on search ad decline

#77

Post by ThomPete »

msoad wrote: post #2

As much as people like to consider Google revenu sources very diverse or dream about future of other Google bets, Google is mostly an advertisement company heavily relying on their search business. It's obvious that Facebook has a better position for growth and adding new channels for their ads business. I can see Facebook share of online advertising grow in the next couple of years.

I am not so sure that Facebook is in a better position. Aren't most of their revenue also primarily tied to advertising?

Re: Google’s stock slid after report on search ad decline

#78

Post by amelius »

zetaabba wrote: post #75
amelius wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It saddens me that so many smart people work for IT companies like Google and Facebook, while they could make a real difference doing medical or fundamental physics research.

why, would you prefer there not to be a search engine that can find (almost) anything you need in less than a second for (almost) no cost to you and then takes the money it earns from you and pours it into major projects with no promise of revenue? Comments like these seem to suggest that Google or Facebook are the worst and one spends their time better somewhere other than IT. I really just don't see it.

Because Google and Facebook waste too many resources on keeping their market share.

For instance, if Google search took 2 seconds per search instead of 100ms, they would lose their market share. But that difference in performance is what is keeping 95% of their highly educated workforce busy.

It is just a worthless arms race, and I hope that people start to realize this.

Re: Google’s stock slid after report on search ad decline

#79

Post by zetaabba »

mahranch wrote: post #55
heisnotanalien wrote: post #45

Say it's not true?! Search ad decline?! How will we survive?!

I really dislike this train of thought and where it leads. Sure, everyone hates ads and would do without them if possible. But people forget; ads subsidize most "free" content. It has been this way for 60+ years, probably more. You know when your grandmother tuned in to watch Howdy Doody? It was always "brought to you by: Palmolive Dish Soap and Ovaltine!". Their ads during commercial breaks paid for that show. Back…

" I do believe this is a big part of why they call us millennials the entitled generation. We literally expect everything for free. From our game of thrones TV shows to our favorite blogs, podcasts and websites. They all exist to entertain us and fuck them for wanting to make a dollar off their hard work. How dare they... "

Wow, you took the words right out of my mouth. I wholeheartedly agree.

I remember talking with a non-technical friend of mine about Bandcamp and how he was annoyed that his popular free album had hit the limit of free downloads on the site. He would have to either pay Bandcamp or start charging for the album. Presumably Bandcamp does this because the cost of their infrastructure and work is not free and this is a way to get some revenue. But all my friend could say was "how greedy they are!" as if one spent their life acquiring a hard skill just to do free work for you and your band.

Its a more nuanced entitlement, where we millenials understand that it took hard work to make something, but after all, doesn't Google, Facebook, etc. do it "for free" as far as the end user is concerned?

Re: Google’s stock slid after report on search ad decline

#80

Post by mark_l_watson »

amelius wrote: post #76
mark_l_watson wrote: post #71

When I worked as a contractor at Google it was amazing how much money they apparently spend on infrastructure, buildings, people, food, etc. However, they do sometimes bring in $16 billion a quarter. Except for when I travel, I don't much use gmail and Google search. (When traveling, I like booking using gmail, auto calendar and travel events, notifications, etc.). Otherwise I use my own email, calendar, etc. and Duc…

But how much does each user earn them now (with ads only)? If they make $16 billion a quarter, then assuming they have about 1 billion users, that's about $5 per month per user. I just wish I could pay that to get rid of all the ads, and the creepy user-tracking.

It is easy to mostly avoid tracking: use a separate web browser for using Google services. I use Chrome for Google, Facebook, and Twitter. For everything else on my laptop I like Firefox with Privacy Badger, and I discard cookies when the browser closes. For iPad and phone, use private browser windows.
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